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Good luck! I've been dealing with the spouse of a friend who has dementia and alzheimers. I go over two or three times a week just to give him a break - she has hit the point where she is losing the cognitive abilities.

It isn't easy to get POA for an adult. Does the friend have a caseworker? I can ask around and see if anyone I know has any advice.

You are elcome! Dementia is a tough cooke. My ex and I dealt with his housemate's father's dementai - he was a former Philly detrective. He could be violent at times. From experience I can tell you that you should be prepared to answer the same question several times - do not get angry, this only causes anguish with the sufferer. Rather, be pleasant and answer - remember, the dementia sufferer has no idea they just aked the same question fifteen seconds ago.

POA: there are two of them. One is a financial POA, the other is health. I found this out when a friend of mine had a major stroke. He and his wife had POA's drawn up prior to the event. It turns out they didn't cover health issues, only financial issues. That turned into a nightmare for his wife to be able to make health decisions on his behalf when he couldn't.

As far as your long-term care issues, you need to research places that your friend can live that have to accept Medicare/SSA as full payment for his care after his assets are depleted.

Everyone - fill out a POA if you haven't yet and save your friends and family a lot of trouble!

Serious question: what if you have no friends or "family" and don't want any existing blood relations in faraway places taking you away somewhere in the event of problems?

There's really nothing you can do, right? Or...?

I've started just giving a fake name and number for the "contact in event of emergency" forms that I meet with increasing frequency these days, but I know this will eventually come back to haunt me. Oi.